Conservation and Environment in Mexico: Monthly Updates

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Conservation in Mexico - Monthly Update April 2007

The month of April has flown by very quickly, starting with the Semana Santa which is the Holy week. As this is a public holiday we had lots of tourists stopping by to look at the turtles that we have in our pools for educational purposes.

Some of these turtles have been caught by poachers and are unable to be released and we also have a select few of young turtles that we are keeping captive to observe their development.

Our newest member of staff also arrived. Alice Curzon has joined us from England as Assistant Project Manager to Oliver so that we can expand our project base.

She has a degree in Biology and is settling into the job very quickly as she has increased our aims with new ideas and a whole new approach to the volunteers and staff.

We have recently had the joyous occasion to release the Leather Back turtle hatchlings as a successful result from the nests last month.

These hatchlings were treated with great fascination by the volunteers as they are much larger and stronger than the Olive Ridleys that are also hatching daily.

Our newest project this month has been building a new area for the volunteers. The volunteers have been working hard to collect palm leaves to make the roof, and leave their mark in the cement. This new building will be used for when the volunteers want to relax after a hard days' work, as well as for when the staff give talks relating to the projects that we carry out. These will include turtles, bird-watching and the crocodiles.

Work at the crocodile farm is beginning to get exciting, it is coming to the end of the mating season and soon, the crocodiles that are in the lake at the crocodile farm (Cocodrylus acutus and Cocodrylus Moreletti) will start laying their eggs on cleared raised areas of ground around the lake.

This month the volunteers have been mapping and clearing the nests as well as laying the foundations to create an artificial beach. This will allow us to monitor any eggs that we collect, and allow the baby crocodiles a better chance of survival.

The hatchling crocodiles (Cocodrylus acutus and Cocodrylus Moreletti) that are around 6 months old have now been marked and measured by volunteers and will continued to be measured every 2 weeks. This is so that we can assess their growth whilst not taming them.

As April leads into May we will see many more developments here at Campamento Tecoman start to take shape providing more fabulous experiences and learning opportunities for the volunteers.